Intel i820 sales flap weakly towards flop

Multi millions? Big four Taiwanese firms don't think so

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Caminogate Initial suspicions that Intel's i820 chipset is a turkey have been confirmed by Taiwanese newspaper The Commercial Times, which reports that four big mobo companies have said sales have failed to get off the ground. At CeBIT 2000 last month, we reported that a number of Taiwanese mobo manufacturers were unhappy with sales of mainboards using the i820 (Camino) chipset, despite attempts to fix problems which dogged its introduction last year. Earlier in the month, senior Intel VP Pat Gelsinger told The Register that "multimillions of i820" motherboards would ship in the second quarter of this year. But now the Commercial Times has obtained validation of our CeBIT straw poll from four of the largest mobo manufacturers, Asustek, First International Corporation (FIC), Elitegroup, and Gigabyte. They told the newspaper that while last year over 60 per cent of motherboards used the popular BX chipset, the decision to phase that out in favour of the i820 chipset were "dismal" and showed little sign of improving. The big Taiwanese mobo firms said that said i820 sales accounted for less than 10 per cent of their totals last month. The reasons weren't just because of the glitches that hit Intel last year and last month, but also due to the high price of Rambus modules, and the i820 itself being more expensive than the BX chipset. The BX set still remains popular, and Intel has extended its life, but only a little. You can find our original CeBIT story here, and the Commercial Times story here. Pat Gelsinger's comments about the i820 chipset can be found here. ®